Barely Breathing
by BonesBird
Summary: Episode tag for 6x26 "Unimatrix Zero pt I. How did Tom and B'Elanna actually say goodbye to one another, and how did they stop her volunteering for a dangerous mission from pulling them apart. P/T.


**Title: Barely Breathing  
****Summary: Episode tag for 6x26 "Unimatrix Zero pt I. How did Tom and B'Elanna actually say goodbye to one another, and how did they stop her volunteering for a dangerous mission from pulling them apart. P/T.  
****Lyrics: Broken - Lifehouse**

**So, this, once again, started as a drabble for the challenge over on Facebook… but… as my muse likes to do every so often, it wouldn't stop. I was literally watching Unimatrix Zero as I wrote this, and this scene just seemed… unresolved… I'm fairly sure I've written something around this scene before. Probably in "All Of The Words", but… hey I'm a writer. Read and review, as always.**

**As always, love and snuggles to my cheerleaders, PinkAngel, Alpha and Jekkah.**

* * *

_**I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing  
**__**With a broken heart, that's still beating  
**__**In the pain, is there healing  
**__**In your name, I find meaning  
**__**So I'm holding, I'm holding on  
**__**I'm holding on, I'm barely holding on to you**_

His voice. There was something in his voice that was telling her she needed to not do this. She needed to stay on Voyager, with him. He knew she couldn't, and she knew she couldn't. A few years ago the idea of her being loyal to a Starfleet captain would have been preposterous, but now, it wasn't so much, and she couldn't let her captain go there alone.

She had another loyalty though. The loyalty to him. He had stood beside her through everything. Every fight, every long night, every mission gone wrong. In the almost 3 years since they had become a couple, he had never said anything to her in quite such a tone. She was allowing herself to be assimilated, and that terrified him. It terrified her too, but she had felt she had to do it.

She tried to tease him. To get him to lower his guard, to just let her prepare for the mission, and so she could say a goodbye to him in a way he would always remember if the worst should happen. When she had been in the Maquis, she had always recorded a message, something to say goodbye to her cousin or a friend, since Voyager though, he recordings were always for him. Encoded to send when her security codes were deactivated by the Captain.

"It'd be a small price to pay" he whispered right in her ear, and the closeness, and the intimacy those seven words implied almost broke her. Almost turned her away from the mission, turned her into his arms, swearing she would never leave them again, but only seconds later he'd turned and gone back to the other console, and she had to catch her breath, slow her heart.

She turned to him, the feelings she had whenever she looked at him growing stronger every second, and they had been for more than six years. She couldn't imagine her world without him in it, and that led to this being one of the hardest decisions she'd ever made, because it wouldn't only affect her, it would affect him too.

"I love you" she almost whispered, he stopped what he was doing and moved forwards again, just sitting on the copilot's seat and looking at her, searching something in her face. He leant forwards and kissed her gently, before wrapping his arms around her and holding her so tightly she almost couldn't breathe, which was when she felt the first tear fall on her neck.

She pulled back, and saw the pain in his eyes, a pain she was causing him. She reached up and wiped her fingers under his eyes, barely leaning back, just far enough to see that he knew why she was going. She wanted to apologise, to tell him that if she had the choice she would choose to stay with him. But they'd both know she'd be lying, and she had made a promise that she wouldn't lie to him again.

"Promise me something" he muttered, a few minutes later, her heart pounding as his hands ran through her hair, she didn't want to break the contact, even though she knew Tuvok would be arriving any moment. The Vulcan was discreet though, and she needed these last few minutes, otherwise, she wasn't sure how she would make it through this mission. He pulled her to him again, and kissed her, in the way he did when he didn't want her to leave. His voice grew stronger as he looked at her again, and she felt the strength of his love. "Promise me you'll come back alive."

She smiled and leant forward, she had a feeling, and maybe that wasn't enough, but she knew she would see this man again, that what they had wasn't at an end yet. She wrapped her arms around him again, holding him just as tightly as he had been holding her before. "I promise. I'll come back. To you." If that was all she could do, to help them both through this mission, then that was all she could do, but at least it was something, and it stopped her from breaking. As she had someone to hold on to, who was holding on to her.


End file.
